The Second Biggest Rock in Oz.

For the next few months my time will be spent in Stanthorpe, southern Queensland while I’m buissy picking apples to fund my travels. Finally the rain has stoped and at last I had a day off when the sun was shining, so I took a second trip to Bald Rock national park. This time I was able to see the rock in its entirety as it was previously shrouded in cloud.

The smoothe granite face of Bald Rock striped with lichens and moss.

The mass of Bald Rock is second only to Ularu in Australia. Precariously balanced on top of the rock and strewn throught the surrounding gum forest are many large, weathered rounded boulders, stacked up as if purposfully. Some seem as if one good push could role them away, I had to fight the inner devil in me.

The balancing rocks, the emblem of Stanthorpe.

The rock nesteles in tall white barked Eucalyptus trees. The view from the summit across the canopy is particularly green as the trees are covered with fresh green growth following the wet weather and have yet to age to their charastic glaucus blue. Strips of bark metres long dangel from the trunks, peeling away revealing the fresh white beneath.

Peeling Eucalyptus bark.

Crevices in the rock provide foot holds for wild flowers to take hold. Eventually trees take root and combined with rain and frosts eventually break down the rock into the smaller bolders arround its base. The spiny sead heas is from Lomandra longifolia.

Lomandra longifolia.

Cracks in the rockd provide warm homes for lizards with luxury views.

Dipodium punctatum a paracitic orchid drawing its nurrishment from the roots of Eucalyptus trees.

I'm so glad to see you're well! Are there any marginally cold hardy orchids to be found in Southern Queensland? A friend of mine sent me an Australian dendrobium that has proven to be hardy to at least 25 degrees, so I'm sure that more exist! Be safe out there, and write a book about your travels when you get back!

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“What a wonderful and long-continued series of variations must have led up to the perfect ‘trap’ in Utricularia, while at any stage of the process the same end might have been gained by a little development of roots and leaves, as in 9999 plants out of 10.000!” Alfred Russel Wallace, from a letter to Charles Darwin dated 21st of July 1875.

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The many tender exotic plants which fill the borders of the Exotic Garden spend the fickle winters in a large poly-tunnel. This video, filmed by Chris Ridley, captures its construction back in February 2012. With a bit of ingenuity the new tunnel was constructed over the old, smaller one then fit to burst at the the seams.